Paralab offers a complete range of instrumentation for the cannabis industry comprising solutions for production, postharvesting, extraction and purification and also including analytical instrumentation for process and quality control.

We have a range of solutions from laboratory to industrial scale, with various levels of automation.

You can come to us with your questions!

Paralab offers a complete range of instrumentation for the cannabis industry comprising solutions for production, postharvesting, extraction and purification and also including analytical instrumentation for process and quality control.

We have a range of solutions from laboratory to industrial scale, with various levels of automation.

You can come to us with your questions!

Grow lights based on LED. Several models optimized for different operation conditions from vegetation to flowering, covering the complete spectrum from ultraviolet (UV) to far infrared (FR)

Continuous production of low concentration of Ozone (O3), Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2), anions like Hydroxyls (OH-) and cations. The concentrations are under the the limits defined by EU-OSHA (European Agency for Safety and Health at Work), so operators may safely work on rooms protected by this technology. It reduces pathogenic agents between 98% and 99% at the protected areas.

This equipment removes the stems and branches

Depending on the model it may remove large and small leaves producing perfectly manicured flower buds

Sorters allow to separate by size dry or wet buds. Consistent size is more and more a required from final customers. It also plays an important role on bud’s  efficient drying control.

Ionizing radiation is the most efficient technology for bioburden reduction. For inhouse operation, x-ray irradiation is the typical solution.

To have efficient and well controlled extraction processes, it is essential that batch after batch, the ground plant is reproducibly processed to a level where the particle size doesn’t limit the mass transfer.

Supercritical Fluid Extraction based on supercritical CO2 is the reference technique for medical cannabis applications. Compared with ethanol extraction, for the same throughput capacity it requires higher capital investment. However, running costs are smaller. In regular operation conditions, the extract contains waxes and lipids that must be removed later by winterization and filtration. However, other components present on ethanol extracts may be avoided if required. There are commercial units available to process from less than one kg/day of dry plant to several ton/day.

It is one of the most widely used extraction techniques. It is easily scalable. It is present in small extraction laboratories that process a few kg/hr up to large extraction units that process several ton/day. If used at very low temperatures, typically -40 ºC, it does not extract unwanted compounds like waxes, lipids, and chlorophylls. However, due to its polarity and the always present residual water, it extracts water soluble compounds like plant metabolites and sugars that other techniques do not extract. The supporters of this technique consider this as an advantage since it will generate an extract that better represent the plant chemistry and by so a real full spectrum oil. The detractors of this technique consider that those products are of no interest and that will demand extra effort on the downstream processing to get high quality distillate or isolate. Those extra compounds are typically removed by distillation when required. In the past, column or stirred vessel extractors were the common topologies for ethanol extraction. More recently, low temperature extraction centrifuges are the first choice due to their versatility and ease of use. Depending on the model, they may allow to process just a few kg/hr or hundreds of kg/hr. They have the advantage of removing with very high efficacy the alcoholic extract solution from the biomass solid residue, reducing the losses of ethanol and compounds of interest.

Initial capital investment is lower than for SFE extraction but running costs quickly overcome those savings.

Cold water extraction may be used to produces a rich concentrate of cannabinoids and terpenes called Bubble Ash. This technique basically gently removes the trichomes from the flower and concentrates them. It may be later converted in high purity full spectrum oil or oil infusions. It is easily stored and preserved in a freezer below -15ºC. 

Winterization is the common name for the cold precipitation process. The extracts obtained by Ethanol extractions carried out at warm temperatures contain waxes, lipids and chlorophylls that are unwanted compounds in high quality crude oil. To remove them, the extracts must be cooled at temperatures below -20°C, typically -40°C or lower, for several hours or days. At these low temperatures, those compounds will precipitate. The extracts obtained by Supercritical CO2 also contains very high concentrations of waxe and  lipids. To remove those compounds, the extracts must be diluted in Ethanol and winterized.

Filtration is a common technique in cannabinoids extraction processes. Bag or lenticular filters may be used after winterization to remove the precipitated waxes, lipids and chlorophylls. It may also be used to remove residual fine particles present in the crude oil coming from the initial milling process.

The extracts coming out of Ethanol or Hexane extraction are essentially composed by solvents. The substances of interest, cannabinoids, terpenes and flavonoids are in low concentration. It is necessary to remove the solvent and if possible, to also recover it for later use. For small scale operation rotary evaporators are the choice. For larger throughputs falling film evaporators are the typical solution. At the end of this process two streams are obtained: the crude oil and the recovered solvent. Vaporization is also used to recover the winterized ethanol extracts coming out from the post-processing of Supercritical CO2 extracts.

During the crystallization process to produce isolates, Pentane is used as solvent and at the end is recovered by vaporization too.

The extracts coming out of Ethanol or Hexane extraction are essentially composed by solvents. The substances of interest, cannabinoids, terpenes and flavonoids are in low concentration. It is necessary to remove the solvent and if possible, to also recover it for later use. For small scale operation rotary evaporators are the choice. For larger throughputs falling film evaporators are the typical solution. At the end of this process two streams are obtained: the crude oil and the recovered solvent. Vaporization is also used to recover the winterized ethanol extracts coming out from the post-processing of Supercritical CO2 extracts.

During the crystallization process to produce isolates, Pentane is used as solvent and at the end is recovered by vaporization too.

The cannabinoids present in the plant are mostly in the acidic form. Most of the cannabinoids therapeutic effects are seen only in the non-acidic forms. Converting the cannabinoids from the acidic form to non-acidic form is called Decarboxylation. The cannabinoids partially decarboxylate while the plant dries up naturally. The process can be accelerated by exposing the plant or crude oil to temperatures between 115ºC and 121ºC during one to two hours or overnight around 60ºC. A decarboxylation step in the milled plant before the supercritical extraction is advisable since cannabinoids in the acidic form have different solubility coefficients in supercritical CO2 and the extraction process is faster on the decarboxylated biomass.

Short-path distillation is an advanced form of molecular distillation, commonly used for cannabinoids crude oil purification. Depending on the purity of starting material it may purify up to 95% after a few distillations runs.

The last generation of industrial HPLC systems reduced the solvent consumption up to forty-fold drastically decreasing its operational costs.

Industrial HPLC is the chromatography technique with highest resolution, consequently leading to higher yields, and it is highly scalable. 

It allows to produce high purity isolates (>99.x%). It is the main purification technique to obtain liquid form isolates like 9-THC or 8-THC. It also makes more efficient the production of powder based isolates like CBD, THCA and CBG, by doing a pre-purification of the distillates before the final crystallization step. Another application is for the remediation of THC on Broad Spectrum Oil as well as on the remediation of pesticides and toxins.  There are models to process from 1.5 L/day to over 40 L/day.

Crystallization is the key process on the production of powdered base isolates like CBD, THCA, CBG and others.

Those isolates are obtained after a crystallization step of high purity distillates or chromatography extracts. It is performed typically using Pentane solvent. To obtain high purity crystals more than a crystallization and washing cycles may be required. 

Packaging machinery is present in different stages of the process. Cannabis producers need to pack the dry flowers under vacuum or inert gas atmosphere. Residual biomass from extraction processes may also be properly packaged to reduce space before being sent out. Final products need to be packed in proper containers – bags, bottles, vials, syringes, ...

To determine the water content of the plant

To measure the water activity of the plant, i.e. the concentration of water that can react

Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry is the reference technique for the determination of Heavy Metals like Mercury (Hg), Lead (Pb), Arsenic (As) and Cadmium (Cd). These contaminants may come either from the soil or fertilizers.

Gas Chromatography with Flame Ionization Detection and Head-Space injection is used to measure the Terpenes Profile and Residual Solvents. At an extraction facility it may be used at reception to determine expected Terpenes yield and later at different stages to measure the efficiency of each stage. Terpenes Profile is also an important parameter on final products.

HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography) with Mass Spectrometry detection is the reference technique to measure most of the Pesticides and Mycotoxins. Mycotoxins are related to fungal contamination. It may also be used for complete Cannabinoids Profiling.

Gas Chromatography with Mass Spectrometry detection may be used as a more advanced technique for the Terpenes Profile and Residual Solvents as well as for some Pesticides that cannot be analysed by HPLC-MS.

Used to dry and decarboxylate the plant

For some applications, the viscosity of the crude oil or distillates is an important parameter. Since those are high value products and according to GLP and GMP guidelines a sample after being measured should be discarded, the amount of sample used is critical. For this reason, the recommended viscometers for this application are the capillary viscometers that use as little as 100 microliter per analysis. These viscometers are also more accurate.

It can be used in ethanol extraction, cold precipitation, vaporization and distillation whenever low temperature operation is required. For laboratory and industrial applications

It can be used in ethanol extraction, cold precipitation, vaporization and distillation whenever low temperature operation is required. For laboratory and industrial applications

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